Monday, 25 March 2013

Its been with some excitement to head out to the Plot and see whats ready to harvest .......maybe some of my first successful crops of Peppers, Eggplants or Chilli.
I have tried to grow them over the years but with little success and had given up, this summer I was determined to try again........................

The first of my Bonica Eggplants, this one just on 700gms

My first ever Red Peppers!!!! I'm excited!!!

Ok so what was different this time?

I did fuss over the seedlings giving them a feed every couple of weeks, they were mulched well and given a good soak of water every 3 days.

The season was unusually hot and dry.

The plot was totally enclosed with a wire fence for protection from rabbits.

Good old faithful butter beans and Italian climbing beans.

HARVEST MONDAY is hosted by DAPHNE at Daphnes Dandelions , a day to share what you have harvested, cooked or preserved from your plot.

Saturday, 23 March 2013

Wow what a busy month we have had, a trip to South Australia & visit to Maggie Beer's Farm, a big family get-together, and a few projects around the farm including a new path to my veggie plot and an outside shower ! Lots of preserving of summer crops, and a long lunch at Eastern Peak vineyard with the lovely Rosa from Rosa's Kitchen ..........

First up new path to the plot which at present is a riot of late summer crops,
we love gravel, and very practical in the bush !

The best performer's over our Hot and Long summer were Cucumbers, Eggplants, Peppers, Kale, Climbing beans, Rocket, Basil & Lettuce.

This particular plant has just kept producing all summer, at present 22 peppers ! just hoping for another week of sunny days so they all turn red.

Some plants really thrived with the added protection of shade cloth during the day, tomatoes lettuce,cucumber,dwarf butter beans and especially basil . Eggplants and peppers preferred the hot sun.

Italian climbing beans are at the end of the veggie plot and receives all the run off when I'm watering or when we have been lucky enough to get some rain (last couple of days 19mls) The Blue tank in the background is our firefighting tank which I filled every 3rd day from our bore , quite a job to attach trailer to ute then drive to bore, fill up then drive back ,water, all before the heat of the day.

New garden bed and modesty fence (don't want to scare the neighbours)

A rummage in our junk yard found all the bit and pieces for our out door shower, the base of shower sits up a bit high so the water can flow out the plastic pipe under the ground to the fruit trees. Any excess water collects in the bucket to water the plants !! Nothing beats having a shower outside under the starry sky on a hot summer's night!!!